Case Study:University of Guelph Media Guide

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About:
The University of Guelph has about 20,000 students (most of them undergraduates), 830 full-time faculty and nearly 3,000 full- and part-time staff members at two campuses.
The University was established in 1964, but three of its founding colleges are more than 100 years old. It’s located 1 ½ hours west of Toronto in the City of Guelph (pop. 120,000). Its Ontario Agricultural College and Ontario Veterinary Colleges are areas of unique strength.
Alumni include economist John Kenneth Galbraith and Roberta Bondar, Canada's first female astronaut in space.
Challenge:

As a former reporter the University of Guelph’s News Service Director knew their Media Guide didn’t give journalists what they needed – quick, pertinent results, even with limited subject matter expertise.

But the News Service office didn’t have the resources to move beyond the WordPress system they built in-house. For years they did their best with this WordPress solution even though it lacked key capabilities like ease of updating and quality search results. It was a system that wasn’t used much by the media and didn’t meet internal needs.

Results:

300% increase in profiles listed in first year.

With a new experts directory to meet their needs, the University of Guelph finally had the tool to justify adding a lot more experts. They used the mobile-friendly profile manager to increase profiles from 300 to 900 in the first year.

Journalists can also search for experts by campus, in addition to by keywords, faculty, or department. Helpful to attract local media at each campus.

Niche areas of expertise in agriculture and veterinary medicine have proven to benefit greatly from SEO optimized pages. The combination of specific expertise and being on a university domain are well regarded by Google.

Conclusion:

As a university close to, but not in, a major media market they are rarely the first place journalists look. But because they are within driving distance media are willing to consider them as viewers/readers demand diversity. Journalists tell the University of Guelph that to make it worthwhile it needs to be convenient and fast.

Using Expertise Finder the University of Guelph is able to have an industry leading experts directory at a budget friendly cost and no I.T. worries. They have used this opportunity to expand their experts listed by 300% in year 1. The overall result is increased usage by journalists and more Google traffic.